For example, a control system includes machine parts, electronic parts that control the machine parts, and a program that executes a processing of the electronic parts. When such a control system is developed, each of the design documents of the machinery parts, the electronic parts, or the program is managed as electronic data.
As a related technique, there is proposed a technique which associates an input port with an output port so as to connect a plurality of modules to each other based on port information and instance information. There is also proposed a technique which, when a number of fixed elements actually provided in a part does not coincide with a number of fixed elements be provided in the part, displays information to that effect.
There is proposed a technique regarding a logic diagram entry device which schematically displays a plurality of drawings on one screen according to contents described in a connection drawing file between created drawings. There is proposed a technique which extracts a shape change portion of an equipment 3D-model, stores the shape change portion as new dimension and arrangement parameters in the equipment 3D-model to be reused as a new equipment 3D-model. There is proposed a technique which manages relevance data between drawings with editing flag data and other drawing objects as a drawing object.
Related techniques are disclosed in, for example, International Publication Pamphlet No. WO2010/038387, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2010-009314, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-022294, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2008-287300 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H09-0269953.
A system which designs the machine parts, a system which designs the electronic parts, and a system which designs the program are different from each other. Accordingly, electronic data for individual design documents are independently managed by different systems.
In the control system, the machine parts, the electronic parts, and the program have a relevance each other. Therefore, when any one of the design documents is changed, this may affect the other design documents in some cases. For example, when a design of the program is changed, the design documents of the machine parts or the electronic parts may be affected by the change.
To this end, the design document of the machine parts, the design document of the electronic parts, and the design document of the program are managed by different systems. Therefore, when a design document which is managed by any one of the system is changed, it is difficult to specify a design document of another system affected by the change. A verifying operation for specifying the design document of the other system affected by the change may be complicated.